Sterling Snow
by xXxJazzy B. RealxXx
Summary: At ten, I believed in stories and myths; they were my lullaby. When I turned fifteen, I learned that some fairytales were darker than what the adults sugared them up to be. I never thought my favorite Chinese bellflower would lie to me about his. InuxKag
1. Chinese Bellflower

_**"Sterling Snow"**_

_**Disclaimer:** I am Rumiko, and I DO own InuYasha. _

_Not. _

_However, I do own the AU plot of this story. _

_This random thought popped up in my head as I was scanning through the beautiful art of "Sakuban". I wish that wondrous artist could animate the next season. But hey, they did me an even greater favor by animating my inspiration._

_Inuyasha truly is a masterpiece, isn't he? _

_Song Inspiration – Stanton Lanier, "Rivers of Light: Unveiled"_

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0_

_**Chapter:** **Chinese Bellflower**_

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0_

_When I was ten years old I believed the traces of magic were only visible to those who knew where to look. I believed in stories, myths and legends. They were my lullaby._

_But when I turned fifteen, I learned that some fairytales were darker than what the adults sugared them up to be. _

_I never thought my favorite Chinese Bellflower would lie to me about his. _

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0_

It blinded her for a moment.

The feathery white blur that momentarily blocked her vision of the charcoal tree trunks and pink-layered ground.

Even the chorusing river and humming trees became hushed and anticipant.

"Ah…?" pastel blue eyes rose from veiling raven bangs to the swirling sky.

More miniature clouds were freefalling out of the twilight heavens in a swarming flurry of white. A single fluffy ice crystal landed on the slope of a pointed stubby nose.

"What is this…?" Kagome Higuarshi shivered at the fuzzy sensation melting into her nose.

"It's snow," the milky-white fingers embracing her smaller hand tightened around it.

It took a second or three for the memory behind that name to come back to her, but when it did, Kagome was grinning from ear to ear, "Snow? Really?!"

The ten year old Higuarshi daughter watched in wonder while the snowflakes shadowed her steps. It was falling everywhere – between the blossom petals, gluing to the tree branches, moistening into the flowy curtain of her hair.

"Lady Kikyo?" the blissful girl jogged up to walk in step with the older woman. "I've never seen snow before!" – she admitted in a, 'I-thought-you-should-know' chirp.

Kikyo tipped her head down to the giggling youth, letting strips of onyx hair cascade down her collarbone and snake to her thighs. Her garb was partially damp from the descending ice stars.

The woman's mellifluous voice sapped into Kagome's ear like honey, "Do you know the tale of the white dog hanyou, Kagome?"

Kagome's rose-glowing cheeks perked up as she marveled over her footprints embedded in the wintry cotton, "Mm-mm."

A nimble smile pranced up to Kikyo's lips. "You mean to say that your mother never told you of the popular Kyoto myth?"

At the telltale trace of pale laughter in the back of Kikyo's throat, Kagome giggled, "If she did, I can't really remember!"

"Then I suppose I'll have to play the role of your mother's storytelling," Kikyo's almond eyes concentrated on the dark night sky above them. "Solomon elders always told of the white-haired dog hanyou that lived amongst the Sakura blossoms."

Kagome staggered closer into Kikyo's thigh, her cheeks damp from snow and hot from flush.

Everyone loved Lady Kikyo, though none of them nearly as much as she did. Lady Kikyo herself said that no man could ever trounce her love, not even her mystery lover (a closet-secret she only trusted in Kagome).

Kagome had always wished this fair maiden was her mother, untainted by tears and severed off from pain. It wasn't meant to sound insolent – she loved her mother, her weary-eyed mother who could only have time to smile and kiss the foreheads of her children. She had only wished that father hadn't torn her once cheery soul in half.

"Kagome?"

The little girl stiffened at the mention of her name.

"Are you listening?" Kikyo gazed at her from the corner of her chestnut eye.

"Y-Yes, Lady Kikyo!" Kagome nodded frantically to erase any assumptions of disrespect. "Please, continue!"

Kikyo's words drafted out the entire landscape of the story to her while they strolled through the woods.

"He was mystical to the naked eye – eyes of molten honey somehow hardened by a gold barrier, shuddering locks of blinding and niveous white. He wore only one red haori, hair from the Fire rat himself."

"Ohh," Kagome's round eyes enlarged. "he sounds painfully gorgeous."

The flicker of a smile was in the corner of Kikyo's mouth, "Yes, I suppose he might've been."

Kagome's brows bowed into her eyelids to assemble a frown.

What emotion was that winding around Kikyo's dark pupils? It reminded of her mother's and yet it differed greatly.

"This hanyou of Kyoto could only be spotted vaguely when the snow awoke from its seasonal hibernation. They said his mother, a princess of otherworldly beauty, died here, in this very forest when he was a boy."

"How sad," Kagome sympathized to her dragging feet.

"You know Kagome," Kikyo craned her eyes to her again. "the hanyou may have been striking, but he was also striking up a goal to rob the Shikon no Tama."

Kagome pursed her lips, "Hang on a second! The Shikon no Tama was under your family's protection a long time ago! Maybe this dog-boy isn't so painfully gorgeous as much as I THOUGHT."

Kikyo gave the child a guilty smile, "Kagome, hanyou and youkai don't exist, and the tale isn't finished—"

"Of course they exist!" she released Kikyo's holding hand to spin around and ball her fists up at her. "How dare THAT half-breed even dream of stealing from you, Lady Kikyo! If I ever see him I'll give him a piece of my mind—" – a breeze carrying cherry blossoms swept over her – "AH! M-My scarf!"

The green scarf her mother had knitted to match her green kimono was now on a quest to get away from Kagome with the help of the winds.

"Mama's gift!" Kagome shrilled and abandoned Kikyo's side to chase after the gliding scarf.

"Kagome, please wait!" Kikyo reached out a hand in a hopeless attempt to grab the ten year old.

Kagome's slim legs were quick and athletic in this moment, and the fair maiden could only stare in bleakness after the child's shrinking back.

Kikyo's eyes withered into a rare express of secret prayer whilst the harsh breeze whipped tendrils of thin black along her face, "I know you'll be returned to me shortly…"

The green scarf flagged through the snow, ever so often teasing Kagome's desperate hands with an occasional swoop or two.

"Get back here, mister scarf!" Kagome begged over and over again, breath hitching and fatigued. "Mommy would be so mad if I came home without you!"

Her only scarf wasn't in favor of obeying, however, and spiraled away like a soaring Mizuchi dragon in the midst of blinding white.

"Ooh, I won't give up!" the pep talk helped an ounce for her plummeting stamina.

The blue-black river of her swishing mane rippled behind her as her scampering sandals dashed across the piling snow mounds. Kagome squinted between wispy white, trying to depict the stony gray that was closing into view.

"…Stony…?" her eyes bolted open.

The ten year old's pants became short and quick once her legs began to slow their patterning stride until she was simply jogging. The wind was suddenly no more. The trees were droning again in melodic zither harps.

There, a few feet away from her toes, was a worn out ornamental stone sculpted like a rectangular block with her scarf resting directly atop it.

_'It's in front of a Sakura tree too,' _Kagome tucked wild hairs behind the shell of her tiny ears.

The aura binding around it was forlorn and remote, while the petals of Sakura blossoms calmly encircled it in a numinous behavior. To make matters eerier, there were splotches of gaudy red blood stained on the grave. The whole clashing of it all was causing hairs to stand on her arms.

"It has to be a tombstone," Kagome enlightened her doubts and brought her clasped hands closer to her trembling lips.

She couldn't tell if fear or the weather was chilling her clattering bones. Yet despite the unpleasant prickles on the back of her neck, her feet were drawing her nearer. She needed that scarf. Her mother worked so hard on it!

Minutes felt like enveloping hours until her wiggling toes stood erect to the trail of blood before the tombstone. She gulped away any morsel of cowardice and allowed her small digits to stretch out for the beloved scarf.

Kagome pad-locked her eyes shut and gripped for the green fabric. She progressively peeled her eyes open, one by one…

"Ah!"

Turning her hand over and flexing her fingers, there was no scarf to be seen!

"Th-The wind took it!" tears piled up and danced down her puffy pink cheeks.

Kagome collapsed into the rivulet of dried bloodlines and sniveled.

All those hours spent knitting in the middle of the night, all that money, all that finger-pricking….

All for her.

The freezing salt crystals stung her quivering mouth the moment they seeped into its corners.

What was she supposed to do?

Go back home and explain this catastrophe with a smile?

Go back home and get spanked by her mother's disappointed frown?

Kagome tried to dry her tears, she really did try. Just as she tried to be the perfect daughter, the perfect miniature maiden.

But the tears wouldn't stop.

They were forming an ocean beneath her.

Kami, they wouldn't stop.

She sobbed and wailed until her face burned with scalding red.

Now the dreadful temper of the wind came back with all its fury.

Kagome gestured to stand from her despair, but there was no feeling in her thighs.

She blinked, stopped her tears, wiggled again, and then gasped.

"M-My l-legs are f-frozen!" the ten year old open-mouth sobbed while she fought to stand off the icy ground.

It was impossible – the frost had iced around her deadened legs.

"L-Lady Kikyo!" Kagome cuffed her quivering hands to her cheeks. "K-Kikyo! Help! Help me, Lady Kikyo! Kik-yoooo!" The vacant silence spun frantic webs of numbing terror around every muscle of her body. "Kik-YOOO!"

Nothing but the howling gust answered.

Kagome wasn't ready to give up, she just had to see daylight, she just had to. She rocked, jerked and fidgeted to somehow escape the horror of her first night of snow. Alas, there was no hope bending its will for her tonight.

"I-It wasn't supposed to be like this…" she whimpered after plunging her palms into the snow to keep from passing out under winter's arctic spell. "S-Snow isn't supposed to be so cruel and mean…it's supposed to be peaceful and s-sweet." A briny tear dripped off her rime-coated eyelash.

The small child could feel the layers of snow jacketing over her back.

"Pl…Please," she dazedly collapsed her hands together and prayed. "Pl-Please…m-mister snow, s-spare me just this one t-time. I'll be a good girl, I promise! I-I'll clean my room, I won't draw in class or paint at home, I'll do my chores, I'll be just like Kikyo! I-I-I s…swear…!" her words left a fogged breath of air after each slipped from her frigid lips. "I'll be…j-just like…" her eyelashes bowed into her dripping sapphire eyes, "just like…L-Lady…"

A guttural, yet affection-oozing voice from afar filtered her ears, "…Kikyo…"

Just before her sagging eyelids could envelope her into an eternal rest, the security of warm fabric hugged her frozen skin. It was then, when she caught the glimpse of bright red sleeve and sterling wisps of snow-white draped around her, that everything went black.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Pastel and water colors of the world were slowly flooding back to her in a big, confusing blur.

The lightheaded Higuarshi daughter rubbed her eyes open to now adapt to her vision that shifted there to here like unfocused camera lenses. Finally, she got a clear picture on her surroundings.

She was enclosed by four wooden walls, small and compact with gathered fire sitting vertical from her. A tilted entrance flap imitated a poor door, but gave her enough view of the outside world to see that the snowflakes had ceased their giddy dives, leaving only hills of frothy earth-clouds to topple over plants and shrubberies.

And then...

It blinded her for a moment.

The feathery white blur resembling a glinting strand that momentarily blocked her line of vision.

Even her chorusing heart became hushed and anticipant.

"Hey."

Kagome's neck almost snapped at the groggy, manly voice.

She fearfully lifted her head, inch by inch, afraid of what she'd face. Her eyes then trailed over to her shoulder – there was a red blanket sheeted over it. This, however, wasn't what made her retinas nearly detach. It was the silky milk strings of hair resting delicately over that blanket.

Kagome gradually tilted her eyes back until at last her eyes of innocency collided with majestic indigo orbs.

The possessor of the handsome ceruleans unleashed a crooked smile to pour into her heavy-lidded eyes. His hair wasn't sterling snow-white – it was the darkest of nightfall, painted with dashes of alloy-silver that blanketed down his back like an ink waterfall framing around her own toes.

That's when gravity felt as light and feathered as a tornado of cherry blossoms. That's when she tasted her first serving of love.

"Feeling any better now?" the blood boiling under the flesh of her cheeks scorched the frost off her face as his glossy forelocks tickled her nostrils when he leaned into her.

_'I must have imagined the silvery snow hairs, after all?'_ "Um…" Kagome was too wrapped in the realization that she was sitting in between his black hakama pants with her back pressed into his white kosode shirt. She could even feel his tranquil heartbeat and scorching skin through the material.

"You were out cold praying in front of Princess Izaoyi's tomb to the snow," he cocked an amused, hairy black eyebrow.

A peach tint splashed over her face. "I-I…ah, I was just…"

"Scared, right?" he smirked lopsidedly.

She decided his voice was the most extraordinary song she could ever hear.

"I was v-v-very," Kagome quietly confessed, unconsciously bringing the sleeves of his arms tighter around her tinier body frame. "I thought…the snow was going to e-e-e-eat me."

"Keh, well that's stupid," the handsome, older man scoffed.

Kagome's heart dropped into the acid of her stomach.

"Because I wouldn't have let it."

Now, bumblebees and butterflies from spring were exploding fireworks inside that same stomach. Kagome tilted her head back until the back of her noggin was squashed into his burly breast. His summery, bronze smile and catty wink chased all the winter coldness away.

The spellbound girl couldn't leash back a dainty smile of her very own. He made her feel like a Chinese bellflower, or was he the Chinese bellflower?

"So," the young man grazed off his stray locks that had taken refugee in spilling over her creamy cheeks. "you got a name or are you a nameless little Sakura blossom that got lost in the snow?"

"K…K-Kagome," she stammered like a flustered fool. "Kagome H-H-Higuarshi…m-my name."

"Kagome huh?" the sound of his tongue swirling around the letters of her name made it lovelier than when Hojo and Akitoki pronounced it. "That's kinda cute."

"Th….thank you," she just couldn't form complete sentences. "M-Mm, M-Master—"

"I'm no 'master', K'gome," the man laughed quietly. "Just call me—"

"Inuyasha…"

The young man, no younger than eighteen, veered his now lively eyes away from Kagome, his thick mane taking wing in midair. Kagome arched her attention towards the entrance flap from where the third voice came from. Her heart quivered with joy and turmoil.

"L-Lady Kikyo?" Kagome spluttered.

That was when she'd experience the first serving of sour envy and the aftermath called guilt.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

_I don't know whom I fell in love with first. _

_Was it Master Inuyasha Takashi?_

_Or the mythical snow-haired dog hanyou? _

_Both creatures were painfully gorgeous, even if I only got hazy glances of sterling snow and gaudy red time and time again. I paid that forest a visit every chance I got – just to find my dog hanyou, my art muse next to Master Inuyasha._

_I was positive for a long while, that Inuyasha Takashi was my snow-haired hanyou. _

_I don't know if it was painful because he most likely wasn't my mythical dog hanyou, or because before I met Inuyasha, he already belonged to Lady Kikyo. _

_My beloved Lady Kikyo…_

_I don't know whom I love more. _

_In the end, I finally understood why mother's eyes were always so sad._

_In the end, I never did bloom into a lovely Chinese bellflower, like Kikyo did. _

_In the end, you'll have to unravel the conclusion for yourself. _

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

_Vague? Yes, I know. _

_Pointless? Hope not. I ain't some perfect adult - not even close to an adult. _

_It is a blurry chapter probably full of mistakes. Have no fear! Things will be more explained in the next chapter, oh definitely. The whole snow-haired dog hanyou is more of a mystery left unraveled for awhile. _

_Crap, just keep reading and you'll get the picture. Oi, and I don't write for silent readers. Let me know you're reading it, or else there's no point to continue._


	2. Beautiful Happiness

_Song Inspiration – Deviations Project's "Dear Old Swanney"_

**Author's Note: **_Don't shut out the clear indications that this is a **InuKag** fanfiction. It's in the summary and the category. I'm not a fan of KikInu, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the relationship they once had - this story sort of replays that. Always keep this in mind. _

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0_

**_Chapter: Beautiful Happiness_**

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0_

"He's perfect…" Kagome's beaming lips quivered and her big blue hues sparkled.

"Who's so perfect? Hojo? Akitoki?" Mrs. Higuarshi peeked at the picture from behind Kagome's black head.

The breathless swooning words that wisped out of her twelve year old daughter's mouth had worried her.

"No! Master Inuyasha, of course!" Kagome muffled her giggle into a tiny fist. "He's beautiful, isn't he?"

She leaned forward, her chubby cheeks cherry from her memorization of the adored man, and began to add the last finings to her portrayal. Two daps into the blue liquid paint and she was shakily raising her paintbrush to the colorless eyes that stayed unblinkingly fixated to her sinless face.

Mrs. Higuarshi watched her daughter, her wilted fingers squeezing tighter around the basket of clean laundry.

"You know," Mrs. Higuarshi forced the crooks of her mouth to lift. "Akitoki's a nice boy…and so is his cousin, Hojo."

"Mm-hm! They sure are!" the oblivious Kagome swirled her paintbrush around the black pupils of the portrait paper, creating an indigo blue streak to ring them.

Mrs. Higuarshi squatted to sit down and fold her legs on top of the rugged wooden floors. She set the laundry basket beside her hip and smiled tiredly into Kagome's back.

"So then why don't you spend time with them?" the withered mother carefully grazed her bony fingertips over a fallen picture of a snow-haired, dog-eared man. "Sota's playing with them as we speak. You should accompany him."

Mrs. Higuarshi's brown eyes sighed as her trembling fingers edged away from the bewitching picture. Her only daughter had been drawing and painting Master Inuyasha and the mythical Kyoto hanyou for two years. Her mind never traveled far from her beloved adorations, either. Never far. They were right there beside her schoolwork, right there inside her conversations and right there in her eyes. She was in love with two individuals – one that did not exist and one that could never be hers.

"Sota's got Grandpa with him," Kagome chimed like a church bell and swung her head around to nail her eyes to the picture her mother's hand hovered over.

She reached out and slid it away from her with a fleeting flash of an apologizing smile up at the weary woman before tucking it into her garb.

"Yes, dear but – where are you going?" Mrs. Higuarshi's hoarse voice urged for Kagome to return to her.

"Lady Kikyo!" Kagome bounced through the halls with her gripped picture dangling behind her. "We're going to the festival today!"

Mrs. Higuarshi's helpless eyes imprinted on the spot where her daughter had been until her outreaching hand withdrew back into her bosom. She dipped her heavy-lidded eyes down into her lap…

The evening sun that made a square bronze light bleed through the window was enough gold illumination to highlight Kagome's narrow bedroom. Her bedroom walls were swallowed by paintings of mythical dragons she had hand-painted herself. The right wall's art was however cluttered and hidden with recent papers of all the same muses – Master Inuyasha and the Kyoto hanyou.

Pulling her lean body in front of her oval mirror, Kagome measured her favorite green kimono up to her. It was amazing the thing still fit her.

Tonight was special after all – just like on the night she met Master Inuyasha. Tonight was the night of the Tanabata festival. She'd meet Lady Kikyo and later join the festival, where Inuyasha would be waiting for them.

_'Or waiting for Lady Kikyo,' _Kagome's mind assumed.

The robe sagged some in her hands as she dropped her chin down, bangs fanning over her gloomy eyes.

Twenty-three year old Lady Kikyo and twenty year old Master Inuyasha were engaged this year. In disregards to Lady Kikyo being one of the most beloved women in Kyoto, few seemed happy and celebrative about the unannounced engagement. Like always, it had something to do with Inuyasha.

As Kagome began to plait her thatch hair down into a rib-reaching braid, she didn't even try to cage away the hatred filling her heart.

How could anyone be so cruel to Master Inuyasha? He was a walking, breathing masterpiece that turned coal to Sakura blossoms with his smile, with his mere posture.

The blush on her face made her feverish.

He was brutally beautiful.

Just like Kikyo.

Kagome sat down in front of her mirror and stared into her melancholic face. She brushed her fingers along her soft, suntanned skin.

_'I'm not beautiful like her,'_ her mind discouraged. _'I'm not beautiful like her and Inuyasha are. I'm no Chinese Bellflower, I'm just an ordinary daisy.'_

She paid a quick look to the Chinese Bellflower on her pillow. She was going to put that in her hair today, to make her glow, but…

Turning her eyes away, she stood and dragged her feet to exit her bedroom.

Kagome played on an ordinary smile and journeyed back into the living room.

"Mama, I'm going to meet Lady Kikyo at the…" Kagome's saliva clogged back in her throat.

Mrs. Higuarshi looked to be there, sitting so elegantly on the floors, but the expression dwelling in her eyes was so far away with hostile sadness, it was overbearing.

Kagome felt an unknown wrench of guilt. What was she guilty for? She didn't have time to think about it, only time to stare up as her mother glided across the room and all of a sudden, snatched her into a hug.

"Kagome," Mrs. Higuarshi stooped her head down, a glinting river of tears streaming off her left cheek. "please…don't be a burden to Lady Kikyo and Master Inuyasha."

"Bur…den?" Kagome's thin eyebrows weaved together on her scrunched up forehead as she blinked over her mother's smothering shoulder.

Her mother embraced her tighter as if she were going to slip into a world of pure evil and corrupted purity. A world where she couldn't reach her.

"M-M-Mama," Kagome wriggled carefully out of her arms and stumbled a step back. "I have to meet Lady Kikyo now…"

She was afraid – afraid of that look her mother was giving her, afraid of the teary, strained smile on her mother's face, afraid of what her mother's words meant.

"I'll be back with Lady Kikyo tonight," Kagome bowed and scurried out of the household into the blinding light of the sun.

She was afraid – afraid to look back and see what face her mother was giving her this time.

A safe distance apart from her tiny household, she staggered into an alley of stray cats and trashed fish from the butcher restaurant. Kagome dug her frantic hand into the front of her kimono, snatching out two special sketches – Master Inuyasha and her Kyoto hanyou.

They hadn't changed. They were still there, embedded into the delicate pieces of paper, with the faces she had drawn them with – faces that didn't see her as a burden.

Kagome's eyes misted.

She'd never become a burden to Master Inuyasha.

Never.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Time swished by on dove wings.

Kagome had to pick up the pace if she wanted to reach the Katsura Imperial Villa of Kyoto in the timeframe Lady Kikyo wanted her there.

She just about tripped over a large stone when she reached the front entrance. Rubbing her hindquarter when her knees and palms got acquainted with the ground, she growled back at the troublemaking rock. But all her fury vanished from her previously scolding face when she truly studied that specific rock.

Snow.

Flecks of snow were pasted all over the stone's surface.

"What?" her pink lips mouthed. "I don't remember it snowing today…"

"Took you long enough."

She somewhat expected that comment, but she didn't expect the masculine voice it was draped around.

Kagome's cheeks already became fevered by a flush. Her shaking fingers crossed around her heart.

Only one beautiful voice had such infinite power over her heart's boundless leaps. Only one.

Happiness had never drugged her so as the raven-haired Higuarshi rotated her head around to be staring upon the awe-striking Inuyasha Takashi.

There the center of her dreams sat, on the veranda of the Katsura Imperial Villa, the masterwork gardens decorating his background. To her, he was the last artifact that made the Villa so divine.

Inuyasha blessed her his lopsided smile from their distance, his wrist leaning on his risen knee and the black strands of his sinuous mane spread out around his ankles. He stood from the porch in his beige kosode and red hakama pants.

He looked more beautiful than yesterday, she decided.

Kagome shyly hugged her jaw with her shoulders, streaks of rose petals blossoming into her cheeks. "M-Master Inuy-yasha…" she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe!

Her deity stopped his journey when he reached his destination – Kagome. He chuckled between his words as he knelt down to help her to her feet by the fragile arms, "Clumsy…you never change, Miyuki."

Kagome turned another shade of pink. His touch was so scorching it melted her arms right off her body, "Uh…"

That was his name for little, blushing Kagome these days. Miyuki – it meant beautiful happiness.

"Where's…Lady Kikyo?" Kagome gathered her words into one sentence lacking her famous stutters.

"Kikyo?" Inuyasha turned, showing her his profile and broad shoulder as he shaded his eyes with a hand to peer over the roads. "Ah, she's helping prepare the last touches to the festival. She told me to wait here for you and bring you to her instead."

Kagome's admiring eyes fancied over his form, his shape, his outline as he spoke. She wished she had her paintbrush. She'd paint him just like this – with his violet irises shadowed by his hovering hand, a mystic gleam in them and a childlike light defining his expression while his hair fluttered.

She quickly jerked her attentive eyes back to his creamy face when she saw his legs shift back to her.

"Is that okay with you?" Inuyasha set his hands on his hips, tilting his head and causing ebony sidelocks to brush his shoulder.

Kagome nodded repeatedly, "Mm-hm! Mm-hm! Mm-hm!"

Inuyasha snorted at her coy attitude and tucked his hands into his pockets, walking off.

When Kagome finally looked up, she shrieked in horror when she realized he was a full five feet ahead of her. She trotted after him until she was a good distance behind the man. Only the orchestra of nature entertained her ears and not the strong symphony of his voice. Even so often, she couldn't stop herself from stealing quick glimpses at his wide back.

Ah, his back.

She saw that often when he was with Kikyo. All his attention was on Kikyo when she was around. All of it. Like he had forgotten the girl below his hip.

Lady Kikyo was currently teaching her archery. Something she volunteered in because she never dismissed the flaring passion in Inuyasha's distracted eyes when he came as a spectator to watch Kikyo shoot her arrows. She felt guilt-ridden for the need to have Inuyasha look at her that way when she lined her own arrows to her bow, knowing it just wasn't possible. For when Inuyasha came to visit her archery session, he'd sit there and laugh at Kagome's clumsiness. But she wasn't so insecure to where she assumed he was laughing at her stupidity. He was much too kind for that.

To her, anyway. Not according to the townsfolk. Their dislike towards Inuyasha was a mystery no one was going to unravel for her anytime soon.

Kagome severed off from her mental narrations of the past when a cherry blossom snuggled into the black cloak of Inuyasha's strands. His curtaining hair swayed to and fro, to and fro, sweeping under his legs and brooming the ground with its endless ends.

Kagome smiled cheekily.

He wouldn't notice if she plucked the blossoms off his hair, would he? He couldn't feel her tiny fingers with all that hair, could he?

The idea enchanted her. She reached out and began doing just that, humming a song to herself.

"Just like a song in my heart, just like an angel off the page, you have appeared to my life, feels like I'll never be the same," Kagome sung the lyrics in undertone as she went on picking the flower blossoms from his onyx locks.

When she looked up, she was greeted with the curious eye of Inuyasha. She jumped back and held her hands to herself. How long had he been watching her?!

Instead of asking about her wandering fingers, he smiled out, "Did you bring those drawings with you, Kagome?"

"…D-D-Drawings?"

"Yeah, the ones of that Kyoto hanyou or whatever."

"Hey!" Kagome's cheeks inflated into balloons. "He's not a, 'Kyoto hanyou or whatever'! He's a dog hanyou, the wondrous myth that was only seen among the Sakura blossoms!"

"Shesh, alright I'm sorry," Inuyasha laughed apologetically. "Didn't know you liked the guy so much."

"Well…yes," Kagome's thumbs battled nervously. "He is very handsome."

"You act like you've actually seen this hanyou." The skepticism thickening Inuyasha's words was humoring.

Kagome giggled behind her hands and changed his face with one of her innocent smiles. The tailing blush scribbled on her cheeks just made it all the more cute. "But I have, Master Inuyasha! I have!"

Inuyasha sweat dropped some, his mouth drooping below his small nose.

"You're him, aren't you?"

His hair flinched back. He stared questioningly at the girl, "What makes you think that?"

Kagome pounced in front of his path to block him from continuing on. The sunset glossed her eyes with dancing rays of excitement and brightened the red coloring her stubby cheeks.

"Because you're both so beautiful, Master Inuyasha! You both saved me from the snow! Sakura blossoms are fond of you both! So I came to the conclusion that you're him! You're my Kyoto hanyou!"

Inuyasha blinked a few times, impressed and confused. He broke out into a sigh and just smiled after the shake of his head.

"Sorry, Kagome," he presented his short fingernails to her. "I don't have claws," he stretched out the corners of his mouth. "I don't have fangs either, see?"

Kagome forgot about being disappointed and detonated into an avalanche of laughter at his funny face.

"I'm not him."

The serious and yet tender profoundness in his words shut up her cackles. She erupted into another wildfire of blush when she noticed the expressive warmth toning his features.

"I'm me, myself, Inuyasha Takashi—"

Kagome smiled anyway. She liked Inuyasha Takashi. She loved Inuyasha Takashi.

--"Kikyo's fiancé."

However, she didn't like his new title. Her gleeful smiles faltered into an empty line. She dropped her face and dug her toe into a concave hole.

"I understand," she nodded sullenly.

"Well then," Inuyasha slipped his hands into his kosode sleeves. "we can't keep Kikyo waiting, now can we?"

"No," Kagome wiped her eye and showed him her 'Miyuki' smile. "we can't."

Gold skies reeled into cobalt night.

The festival was everything she thought it would be. Lit by lanterns that guided the roads to a night of celebration and joy. Since Mrs. Higuarshi would have an all-night shift, Lady Kikyo had volunteered to take her. But it was even better than she expected that Inuyasha Takashi was the one to escort her. Kagome was glad to be his ever-persistent shadow. The divided booths held treats that children her age were crowding, which was mostly candy, food and games.

"Do you wanna play on one of those games?" Inuyasha's indigo eyes scrolled down to her.

He had been holding her hand, and she had been mesmerizing over how large and firm his hand was, compared to her easily breakable, tiny one. You could barely see it there between his palm, just her wrist.

"Mm-mm," Kagome closed her body into his thigh. She preferred to stay close to him for as long as time would let her.

Time wasn't in favor of little painters who longed for the hug of older men, though.

"There you are," the voice that was the mother of soothe had never burned Kagome's ears so much.

Kagome peeked over Inuyasha's baggy sleeve to see her beloved Lady Kikyo, wrapped in a plain white kimono that could never look so elegantly captivating on any other woman. For the first time Kagome had seen it, Lady Kikyo's usually luscious black strands were pinned into a neat nest atop her head, flowered by a chain of Chinese Bellflowers. Her sheer forelocks hung loosely on her breasts.

Inuyasha quickly dropped Kagome's hand to turn his entire body to the woman he only had eyes for.

"K…Kikyo," his tongue knotted in his dry mouth.

Kagome couldn't remember seeing him so flushed. Only Kikyo made him blush like that. Only her beloved Lady Kikyo.

In Kagome's mind, of course.

"I've been waiting for the two of you for awhile now," Kikyo smiled, a small thin one that didn't spoil her milky white face.

Kagome didn't want to graze her eyes over Inuyasha's face at this moment. It would be too saddening, but she smiled anyway. Tonight, she'd have to forget about loving Inuyasha. Tonight, she'd have to love Lady Kikyo.

They walked around together, sampling the foods of the festival and sitting through the bands that came to string their songs to the public. Many greeted Kikyo when she floated by, but none treated Inuyasha the same respect. When Kagome turned to him, his facial features were stoic during the encounters. So far, she hadn't felt left out. And she had never wanted to be so left off after one comment from a monk made her face screw up.

He was Miroku, the sixteen year old monk her closet friend Sango had suspended her heart for. Sango was a year older than herself, and claimed to have the same issues Kagome did – loving someone who was older than her, but who never met her. It was just a claim, not a fact.

Miroku was kind from what she saw in him, but she wanted to strangle him the moment he flowered Kikyo and Inuyasha's ears with the 'compliment' of all three of them looking like a family. Lady Kikyo, Master Inuyasha, and green Kagome. A beautiful family.

Kagome glared into his back when he disappeared. She looked down, and then at her hands. They were tangled in the fingers of both Kikyo and Inuyasha.

So then it was her fault they looked like a 'family'.

She had always wanted Lady Kikyo to be her mother, to be the one to ease her heart when she wanted advice. Master Inuyasha splattered that dream. She loved Lady Kikyo, but she loved Master Inuyasha too and he was no father in her eyes…

A whistling screech followed by a popping boom made Kagome 'eep'. She hugged onto both Kikyo and Inuyasha's arms to give her the confidence to look up at where the sound was coming from.

"Fireworks!" Inuyasha yelped like an excited child and tightened his hold on Kagome's hand.

Kagome smiled a little and felt the heat of the sky-climbing fireworks bathe her face over in flashy colors of red, blue, green and yellow. There were like exploding roses that trickled down the black sky in falling comets. She jumped when she heard a 'plop' next to her. Her eyes steered to her right, hair flying briefly.

"Pretty, huh?" Inuyasha leaned back on the heels of his palms, grinning a cheesy grin back at her.

Tingles tickled Kagome's crawling flesh. She smiled affectionately and nodded, "Mm-hm!" – it was hard for her to say anything else around him.

"Kagome," Lady Kikyo's calling tugged her for attention.

Kagome whipped her eyes around to her Lady Kikyo, the woman she had known since she was six years old.

Kikyo lifted something into view. Kagome looked down and shrouded Kikyo with a delighted gasp.

It was the lovely Chinese Bellflower, her favorite flower.

Tears threatened to break as Kikyo curled its stem behind Kagome's ear.

"Now, you're a true Chinese Bellflower."

Kagome gazed up at the woman she often compared to the white swan and unleashed a watery smile. If lips could cry like eyes, hers would've.

Her arms wrapped only half-way around Kikyo's waist, blissfully suffocating her face into the woman's ribcage.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you Lady Kikyo!" Kagome blubbered over and over.

Kikyo blinked and then silently laughed, "There's no need to—"

The ebony-haired Lady Kikyo held her tongue behind her teeth when a comforting strike of warmth hit her heart as Kagome cast her blue globes up to her.

"I'll cherish it always," Kagome vowed, fingers clenching onto Kikyo's obi to prove her faithfulness. "I'll be a Chinese Bellflower just like you, Lady Kikyo. I'll be an honorable student in archery and an honorable lady. You won't be embarrassed to have me at your side."

Lady Kikyo was there for her as far as she could remember. It was Lady Kikyo that had comforted her under the Sakura tree at six years of age when she ran away from home to cry in the garden. It was Lady Kikyo that decided to take her under her wing and make her a personal assistant. It was Lady Kikyo that taught her the ropes of life.

The fair Lady almost grinned – it was almost there, blooming on her white lips, but it only came half way into a smile.

Kagome finally took her moment to prod her eyes back to Inuyasha, determined not to betray her love for Lady Kikyo in this moment.

"Look, Master Inuyasha!" Kagome pointed her finger to the flower nestled in her hair. "I'm a Chinese Bellflower now!"

Master Inuyasha though, didn't give her the warm, proud face Lady Kikyo had. His caramel-tinted face was hardened and steely.

Kagome wanted to disappear right then and there. It wasn't until she realized he was looking past her and at the flower when the feeling went away.

"Yes," Master Inuyasha cleared his throat and looked like someone had threatened him to smile with a knife to his throat. "You're a…Kikyo (_In Japanese, 'Chinese Bellflower'_), now."

Kagome frowned.

Once, when she said those words, they sounded so perfect. Yet when he uttered them, the only one besides Kikyo who made everything sound perfect, they sounded so wrong. The twelve year old jumped as Kikyo's fingers tightened around her shoulders. She glanced up just to see Kikyo standing.

"I'm sure Kagome's hungry," Kikyo justified her actions as she began to stroll away. "I'll be back shortly."

Kagome watched her mother-symbolic Lady vanish behind the blocking backs of the awing crowd. She once again caught the disdain in Inuyasha's face as he stared in half-lidded eyes off to the side. It was a face only her white puppy made when he was helplessly annoyed.

"Master Inuyasha?" Kagome took his large hand in hers.

Inuyasha immediately raced his face up to her, and the expression was wiped clean off. "Eh?"

"Do you think I'm pretty…?" Kagome recited what she had longed to ask many times now. "Like a…like a Kikyo?"

Inuyasha's innocently confused face smudged back into a knotted frown, "Keh."

He smirked soon after and braced his stern hand around hers.

"Course not, stupid," he mumbled. "I think you're _beautiful _like a Kagome…like a Miyuki."

Those words were powerful like thundering lightning. More powerful than anything Kikyo had told her. More powerful than any agony her heart had suffered.

Twin spots mushroomed on Kagome's burning cheeks.

"So," Inuyasha Takashi winked. "where's that artwork you were gonna show me? Still got it?"

"U-Uh!" Kagome's shyness spiked tenfold. "L-Let me see…" she faced her back to him and dug into the front of her kimono, slithering out two papers.

The crumbled one was the Kyoto hanyou. She named him Gina (silvery), due to his silver streaks. His head was turned up and his amber eyes were distant and saddened with the line of his mouth straightened and sealed. A wind of Sakura blossoms flared up uner his white tendrils to suspend them in mid-air like a rippling, sterling sea.

The neat, smoothened portrait was Master Inuyasha, posing his trademark smile and blazing blue eyes. Amazing how water could be so fiery. Sakura blossoms were drawn waltzing around him and the picture was obviously romantic. He stared directly at her, in comparison to the hanyou who was more in love with the melancholy world off in the endless distance only he could see.

However, both looked heaven sent.

She flushed.

Would it be wrong to show Master Inuyasha the portrait of himself? It would be wrong to show Lady Kikyo, most definitely, for Lady Kikyo made her awareness obvious when she watched Kagome interact with him in archery sessions. They were curt, disapproving and judging looks that spoke louder than Kikyo's mellow voice could ever.

Kagome glimpsed at the amber-eyed, snow-haired hanyou.

"…He's perfect too," she breathed.

"He is, eh? Then who's the original perfection fall under?" – she heard Inuyasha's soft voice somewhere along the shell of her ear.

Kagome gasped and instantly let go of her Inuyasha Takashi portrait. The paintwork soared away from her to leave her screeching in terror and shock. Her voice silenced under the winds as it peacefully landed on the grass in front of a pair of socked toes hoisted on red sandals. A cream-white hand reached out and retrieved the drawing.

Kagome's face paled.

Lady Kikyo's eyes stared emotionlessly at the romantic picture in her hands. The shuddering lights in her chestnut eyes lifted up over the rim of the paper…

The mood that caressed the twelve year old girl dropped dead in the form of invisible dove corpses.

She took one step back and did what she knew how to do best – ran.

She ignored Inuyasha's warning yells.

She'd never be Kikyo's favorite Chinese Bellflower again.

Maybe the Kyoto dog hanyou could comfort her tonight…

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0_

_Kagome reaches the age of fifteen in this fanfiction, so the fluff between her and Inuyasha gets heavy. I just simply need to write out her encounters with Inuyasha and the Kyoto hanyou while she's in her childhood stage._


End file.
